Apprehensively Hopeful
by IWannaDanceWithSomebody
Summary: Kurt struggles dealing with being bullied at McKinley. Just a little glimpse into how Kurt deals with the pain and and how he gains hope and tries to let go of feeling bad all the time. Mostly his thoughts. Klaine is together, but mostly about Kurt.


**A/N: So guys, I felt the need to do this really emotional one shot. It's pretty intense so this is a warning for possible triggers if you self harm and are trying to stop. On the other hand, it is very graphic in the beginning but very hopeful about halfway through. I like to think it's more hopeful than sad. It's mostly just Kurt's thoughts. And it's kind of short, but, like I said, sort of pleasant at the end if maybe you need some hope. If you read it, please review and I'm sorry if this offends, but I know other people on here write about cutting. Don't read if you cannot handle it please!**

Kurt wanted see the red. He needed those scratches and cuts and the thin lines that the blood seeped out of. He craved that feeling of release and wanted to keep peeling off the band aids when he drove alone, in the bathroom, before bed, in the shower in the morning,

He wanted the knowledge that he could do something. When Karofsky pushed him up against the locker and he slid to the ground. And no one said anything. When he arrived home and his father waved hello before asking Finn if he wanted to watch the game. When he thought of Blaine and how he didn't have to deal with any of this. He didn't get bullied at school and he lived in a nice house in Westerville with parents who had no other kids. He received all of the solos he asked for

When his heart hurt so much and he couldn't breathe and he cried all the time. In the car with his sunglasses on to mask any emotions, at school in the hallways, collecting himself before entering class and swallowing it all back up.

He tried talking himself out of it. He tried to throw away the razors and forget about them. He tried reading positive books and pushing away the negativity. But sometimes it just wasn't enough. He had to see those cuts and feel them hurting under his long sleeved ensembles. That faint pain he felt when he rubbed his arms because people and their words did not have the power to inflict any more pain than they already had.

There were good things in his life of course, but he could not forget about the calm and the relief that it brought him to sit down in the shower and push that little metal blade so hard against his skin that it split and sometimes separated the skin too much. These were the ones he didn't look at. He covered them up and rubbed them, not looking. Just because it was intentional didn't mean that sometimes he didn't press to hard and the cut was too deep and he wished he were stronger. He thought some people must be better at this than he was.

Maybe his heart wasn't fully in it. But now that he had started, he thought about it when people and their hateful actions filled up his chest and his heart too much and there was no other way to release the pain than to make it hurt the most himself so other people didn't have the power to cut as deep as he could.

He hid the razors in a jewelry box in his closet. His father would never look there.

He pictured red streams pooling and dripping and slanting down his arms, so intriguing and almost pretty in a way.

He had to have that distraction, that feeling, that vision. He felt sick and disgusting, wanting to see red slits down his arms…scratches…marks on the outside to show how it felt on the inside in the moments he makes them.

He hates it when they're not deep enough, likes them just deep enough so when he peels off the Band-Aid it keeps bleeding and he has to put more than one on each cut during the day or when he wakes up after cutting at night.

The redness is so easy to mess up and make a mess and make him feel. It hurts though, and sometimes he feels like he's faking it, like he wants that feeling but it's not there so he does it anyway and he forces himself and it's not the relief he desires.

It's always better when he only wants to do it so he feels that pain. Those are the best ones. He looks at the scratches and the cuts and feels a sense of calm and distraction, something to keep him from thinking all the bad thoughts in his head and how, sometimes, when he's not laughing with his friends or kissing Blaine, he feels empty and sad.

He feels like this for a long time. He thinks it started freshman year.

But one day something changes and he feels better. And he doesn't need the red. There's no big event that makes him happy. He's actually afraid to dwell on it if he is honest with himself. He doesn't want to chase it away.

Certainly, there were still happy days when he wanted to cut. And days in between that were good where he didn't need to. This was different though. He felt light.

He didn't want to have sad days where he cried and listened sad songs. In the past, those made him feel better. But now he wondered why.

He searched for the feeling and he looked inside myself and he wondered, but then he realized he was happy and he didn't see the point of questioning it. Kurt almost wanted to know when it would come back, because he knew it would.

But then he thought he should enjoy this while he had it and maybe it would slowly fade away.

Bad stuff happens, he thought, and life knocks you over and you have to swim through _all_ the shit before you reach the good stuff. But now that he knows that feeling is there, he feels different.

And it might not be perfect, the edges might be a little blurry, but the possibility of it is what makes him smile. He's glad he didn't give up or give in or end it too soon. It's like one day he was cooking dinner for his dad and Carole and Finn and he realized he didn't want to be somewhere else. He wouldn't rather just get it over with. He didn't want to go to his bedroom and dwell in feeling bad and the fact that Karofsky had threatened to punch him earlier in the day. Because it is not about the sadness. Sure, it comes and sometimes it stays for a long time, but it is never permanent. He realizes that now. And it feels so good.

Even after a couple weeks, he waits for it. Eventually, a month has gone by and he realizes all those things he heard about it getting better were coming true. They were happening.

He thought perhaps it hit him so hard because he never had a break. He was never able to hide who he was and people _always_ knew, even if they didn't say anything. And they weren't ready to accept it.

He was the one who had to carry the full weight of not living in an era where who he was, was not accepted. There were people needless to say that supported him, but sometimes just the few people that didn't blocked out all of the goodness from the people that did.

It's still hard sometimes and he cries but he tries to change his thoughts and suddenly everything seems easier.

He used to feel so close to it, like he was hugging that sadness, his arms wrapped totally around it-but now there's an image that's flickering between him standing and looking at it and his arms connected around it.

When he thinks now about how sad he used to feel, he wants to cry and he wishes things had been different, but he wonders if he would be the same person he is now. Just knowing that things _can_ be better makes him feel so hopeful and _glad_. When his dad, or the therapist his dad made him see when Finn told him about Kurt's problem, told him he wouldn't have to feel like he did forever, he never believed them.

He didn't see a way out of the sadness that was always in the corner, watching and waiting. He thought he'd just have to accept it and distract himself with plays and Glee and Blaine.

But now he knew. And he didn't know how long he'd known it. He didn't want to tell anyone because he was afraid they would get their hopes up. He would soon though, maybe if it lasted another few weeks. Just to make sure.

The only thing that was hard would be telling people. Of course it was nobody's business but his own, but Kurt knew that he needed to share this with his boyfriend if he was ever going to totally open up and let this relationship touch his heart.

But the main thing was that Blaine didn't know about his problem and Kurt didn't want to tell him.

His swimming trunks were long enough to cover the scars that he made on his thighs. But he knew eventually he and Blaine would progress past making out and feeling each other up on top of their clothes. He knew that.

It's just…he didn't want Blaine to discover how he had messed up his skin. The dark, reddish marks that did not stem from an accident or a mistake.

He hoped Blaine wouldn't think of him as broken. He didn't feel broken anymore. He felt optimistic.

He knew the way he felt now he could not hurt himself again. He didn't know if maybe some days that sadness would return a little bit, but he knew even lingering over that train of thought meant going backwards and he wanted things to keep feeling bright and full of promise.

Eventually, he and Blaine would get there, and there would be no apologies. Kurt would tell him and Blaine would react. That's all he knew for sure at this point.

**Thank you for reading. Please leave a review if you want to. I am thinking about writing a second chapter about Blaine's reaction so I am not going to mark this complete yet. I know some people can't relate to this and its themes, but thanks for reading anyway. xxx**


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